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OrthodoxBerean
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 11/3/2001 5:50 PM (GMT -6) |   | What do you guys think of this argument?? It was posed by a Calvinist. (I think),
"Gratuitous evils are all evils by which exceed any amount of necessity. Hence, the following:
(1) There exists instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting evil equally bad or worse.
(2) An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of an intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
(3) Therefore, there does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.
(William L. Rowe, "The Problem of Evil and Varieties of Atheism," American Philosophical Quarterly 16 (1979): 335-41.)
Your possible defeaters:
a) G.E. Moore Shift
b) Plantinga's Transworld-depravity
c) Some form of molinism
d) Thomistic knowledge/determination distinction
e) Be left with deism
Counters:
a) G.E. Moore shift leaves the unbeliever in such a state
b) This exceeds the possible limits of God's intervention with free agents, see comments by Michael Sudduth and Richard Swinburne.
c) Molinism is reducable to determinism (shall you take this route, which open theists do not, it will be easy to refute this)
d) Counterfactuals are not a possibility for God, but must be based on the free agency of creation; hence, this view is incoherent (this assumes intuitive activation of the will of God; as opposed to an inferential and passive view of God's knowledge). But open theists deny God's knowledge of the future as it is.
e) You must accept deism. For God to intervene to stop gratuitous evils, since free agents are capable of doing so, is to infringe upon the free agency of man, making God consequentially equivalent to the pupper master of Calvinism.
Hence, it seems the only possible way for an open theist to get out of the inductive problem of gratuitous evils is to deny God's acting in the world."
This came from a discussion board at www.delphi.com/christiantap/messages unuder Does Sovreignty demand total control?
If you believe you have a response to it the challenge is posted there. What do ya think?
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Triskal
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 198
| Posted 11/10/2001 5:55 PM (GMT -6) | | Anyone planning to tackle this argument?
"In Him we live and move and have our being" - Acts 17:28 | | Back to Top | | |
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OrthodoxBerean
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 11/11/2001 5:13 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Anyone planning to tackle this argument?
"In Him we live and move and have our being" - Acts 17:28
I second that!
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GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 11/11/2001 7:22 PM (GMT -6) | | Okay, I'll take a stab at it. Three comments
1. I would not define gratuitous evil as evil that exceeds any necessity. This begs the question, I suspect, for it seems to presuppose that God must somehow be behind evil, that there must therefore be a reason for all evil. Only on this supposition is it true that if there is any evil that goes beyond what is "necessary" for God to achieve his purposes, this is "gratuitious."
I reject the assumption. Why think that evil is EVER "necessary"? I would argue that the possibility of evil is necessary, if love is the objective. But actual evil is not necessary, which is why it is truly EVIL when it occurs. In this sense, ALL evil is "gratuitious."
Now, given that we are in a fallen world, it may be the case that sometimes it is NECESSARY for God to allow, or even orchestrate, certain evil events to prevent or minimize other greater evils. But even here, the evil God allows or ordains isn't metaphysically necessary, only functionally necessary, given a) that God is dealing with an already fallen world and b) that God prefers lesser evils to greater ones.
2) The way the alternatives were depicted was a caricature. None of the adherents of the views would agree with the short summary of their views.
3) Deism is not a way to preserve the goodness and omnipotence of God. It is, in fact, a denial of one or the other. If God could get involved but does not, he's not all good. If God can't get involved, he's not all powerful.
The way out, as I argue in Satan and the Problem of Evil, is to understand how and why God might sovereignly limit himself for a given purpose. If God's goal is love, freedom must be its mean. And this means that God must to some extent irrevocably covenant with himself to give creatures 'say so' over and against himself.
When creatures with free will choose contrary to God, it is evil, and it is gratuitous. but it doesn't at all imply that God is not all good or all powerful. It just specifies the kind of world the all good and all powerful God chose to create.
God is still intimately involved in the world, at every moment, in every person. But, given the world he has created, he must genuinely work with constraints. (I spell these out in some detail in Satan and the Problem of Evil).
There's my take (readers digest version)
Blessings
Doc
"Three is the magic number, oh yes it is, it's the Magic Number" - De La Soul | | Back to Top | | |
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OrthodoxBerean
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 11/14/2001 10:52 AM (GMT -6) | | This reply was from www.delphi.com/christiantap/messages under "Does God sovreignty demand total control"
quote:
Okay, I'll take a stab at it. Three comments
1. I would not define gratuitous evil as evil that exceeds any necessity. This begs the question, I suspect, for it seems to presuppose that God must somehow be behind evil, that there must therefore be a reason for all evil. Only on this supposition is it true that if there is any evil that goes beyond what is "necessary" for God to achieve his purposes, this is "gratuitious."
Philo: Dr. Boyd begs the question even moreso than Dr. Rowe! By his definition of the label, gratuitous evil, he has attempted to get out of the problem. Dr. Rowe begs the question because from his agnostic view point (or atheistic as he would prefer to be labeled), he can't prove that any event is itself gratuitous. Dr. Boyd begs the question by simply making a sweeping comment about the concept and the linguistic construct. To get around this, it is very simple to suggest that an evil an exceeds necessity is known as a traversant evil, something that goes beyond maximal necessity. But this need not even presuppose God is behind the evil. Let us use Dr. Boyd's denial of the axiom that God must be, in some way, behind all evil. This makes him be in an ad hoc position anyways! Think about it... if God is not behind evil, then why must we maintain that God is behind good? Nevertheless, he has an even greater consequence to deal with. That is, one of pyschological devistation. What assurance does he have to provide to the families of those who died in the recent air crash? Was this evil? Was it necessary? If God is not behind evil, or even if he is behind some evil, and even if we say this is a necessary evil (which it would be hard to maintain on his position anyway as opposed to being a traversant evil), then how does Dr. Boyd KNOW that God was behind this? The problem is, he cannot... and thus cannot provide any reassurance to the families that God had a purpose for this evil event. So, Dr. Boyd's problem is pyschological as well as epistemological.
quote:
I reject the assumption. Why think that evil is EVER "necessary"? I would argue that the possibility of evil is necessary, if love is the objective. But actual evil is not necessary, which is why it is truly EVIL when it occurs. In this sense, ALL evil is "gratuitious."
Philo: keep this in mind. I will come back to it VERY soon.
quote:
Now, given that we are in a fallen world, it may be the case that sometimes it is NECESSARY for God to allow, or even orchestrate, certain evil events to prevent or minimize other greater evils. But even here, the evil God allows or ordains isn't metaphysically necessary, only functionally necessary, given a) that God is dealing with an already fallen world and b) that God prefers lesser evils to greater ones.
Philo: What happened? I thought he just rejected the axiom above? He attempts to get out of the problem by distinguishing between "metaphysical necessity" and "functional necessity." This is nothing more than ad hoc stipulation. The murder of Christ was only functionally necessary? The consequences, such as the resurrection of Jesus and others in the day to come, are going to be (or already are) metaphyscially true, and contingent upon the atonement. How can something that is going to be metaphysically true not derive a transmission of contingency from something that is not itself metaphysically necessary? I don't see how this is possible.
quote:
2 The way the alternatives were depicted was a caricature. None of the adherents of the views would agree with the short summary of their views.
Philo: I am at a loss to see what he is discussing.
quote:
3 Deism is not a way to preserve the goodness and omnipotence of God. It is, in fact, a denial of one or the other. If God could get involved but does not, he's not all good. If God can't get involved, he's not all powerful.
Philo: Exactly. Which is why his position, which I have forced him into, is a reductio
quote:
The way out, as I argue in Satan and the Problem of Evil, is to understand how and why God might sovereignly limit himself for a given purpose. If God's goal is love, freedom must be its mean. And this means that God must to some extent irrevocably covenant with himself to give creatures 'say so' over and against himself.
When creatures with free will choose contrary to God, it is evil, and it is gratuitous. but it doesn't at all imply that God is not all good or all powerful. It just specifies the kind of world the all good and all powerful God chose to create.
God is still intimately involved in the world, at every moment, in every person. But, given the world he has created, he must genuinely work with constraints. (I spell these out in some detail in Satan and the Problem of Evil).
Philo: he is just building upon his foundational 3 answers, which I have leveled. Not much need be said here except comment on his last statement. "God is still intimately involved in the world, at every moment, in every person." If this is the case, which appears contrary to his denial of the axiom above, then he may still hold that God is involved with the person doing the gratuitous evil (i.e. a man raping a woman for the second time just because he feels like it). In which case, God, being the loving God he is so that man has this de jure right to rape the woman by his freedom, God cannot do anything about this. Thus, this God is not better than the deistic God who is just as involved as discussed in previous posts. They are only at best invovled in either doing good (which is ad hoc) or being the divine watcher of the world (which makes God the eternal couch potato).
Edited by - OrthodoxBerean on 11/14/2001 3:54:41 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Springs
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 636
| Posted 11/14/2001 6:48 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Think about it... if God is not behind evil, then why must we maintain that God is behind good? Nevertheless, he has an even greater consequence to deal with. That is, one of pyschological devistation. What assurance does he have to provide to the families of those who died in the recent air crash? Was this evil? Was it necessary? If God is not behind evil, or even if he is behind some evil, and even if we say this is a necessary evil (which it would be hard to maintain on his position anyway as opposed to being a traversant evil), then how does Dr. Boyd KNOW that God was behind this?
When and where did Dr. Boyd supposedly say this?
quote:
The Doc wrote: 2) The way the alternatives were depicted was a caricature. None of the adherents of the views would agree with the short summary of their views.
quote:
Philo wrote: I am at a loss to see what he is discussing.
I think the Doc means the 3 worldview definitions the piece started with.
quote:
(1) There exists instances ...
(2) An omniscient, wholly good being...
(3) Therefore, there does not exist...
Other than that piffle. 
-S
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GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 11/19/2001 12:47 PM (GMT -6) | | Brief Response to Delphi (a la orthodoxberean)
Delphi: Dr. Boyd begs the question by simply making a sweeping comment about the concept and the linguistic construct.
Doc: If I did this I'm perhaps being evasive. But I'm not begging the question. Begging the question is when you presuppose your answer in the question. In point of fact, however, I'm doing neither. Clarifying the word "gratuitous" is the heart of the question.
Delphi: To get around this, it is very simple to suggest that an evil an exceeds necessity is known as a traversant evil, something that goes beyond maximal necessity.
Doc: I have no idea what Delphi intends to communicate here. How can anything go beyond "maximal necessity:?
Delphi: Let us use Dr. Boyd's denial of the axiom that God must be, in some way, behind all evil. This makes him be in an ad hoc position anyways! Think about it... if God is not behind evil, then why must we maintain that God is behind good?
Doc: It doesn't, unless we have other reasons for thinking that God is perfectly good. If Delphi grants that God's character is as much revealed in evil as in good, he's got me. But if he shares the assumption that God is all good, his point has no force.
Delphi: Nevertheless, he has an even greater consequence to deal with. That is, one of pyschological devistation. What assurance does he have to provide to the families of those who died in the recent air crash? Was this evil? Was it necessary?
Doc: I don't see how assuring people that God was behind the crash brings much assurance to people. "mam, I'm sorry your child was kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered. But take consolation in the assurance that its exactly as God wanted it to be." In any event, I never find Jesus giving people this assurance. The assurance the NT gives us is that * God is with us; * God is working to bring good out of the event, * heaven is coming and will render it all worth while.
Delphi [Boyd] may still hold that God is involved with the person doing the gratuitous evil (i.e. a man raping a woman for the second time just because he feels like it). In which case, God, being the loving God he is so that man has this de jure right to rape the woman by his freedom, God cannot do anything about this.
Doc: Between determinism and nothing is INFLUENCE.
Delphi: Thus, this God is not better than the deistic God... They are only at best invovled in either doing good (which is ad hoc) or being the divine watcher of the world (which makes God the eternal couch potato).
Doc: Again, between determinism and nothing is INFLUENCE.
Blessings
Doc
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